Feeling This
by Ayla Whitlock
Summary: Bella spent the last 6 years living a gypsy lifestyle with her mother, but when she moves to Forks to be with her father, would a chance meeting with a strong minded shopaholic help her define who she is as a person?


(Btw: This is my first all-human story, it will probably suck. But with your reviews, I can make it better, and not suck! So please review and help me, help you, by improving.)

**Feeling This**

**Chapter One**

I was going home. After the last six years with my mother and our constant moving around the country, I was going home. It was hard for me to admit I would be better off living with my father. Not because it wasn't true because it was, but because I didn't want to break her heart. She meant well, she wanted more for me than living in a small town. She had felt trapped in Forks, that's why she left and began living this gypsy existence with me. But I loved my father, and I was sixteen now. I wanted to go to school and interact with kids my age for once. I wanted my own bedroom, kitchen, bathroom! So when it came time for me to board the plane destined for Washington, I bade my mother goodbye without a second glance. I was looking forward to stability, to a normal life. I couldn't find it in me to feel guilt at abandoning her, like she abandoned my father all those years ago.

I had two days to settle into my new home, before I was to start school on Monday. My dad bought me a purple comforter set for my new bed. I didn't have the heart to tell him my favorite color was green, the fact that he made an effort to make me happy was more than worth sleeping under a color I detested. He tried to get me to go to the main city, forty minutes away to go shopping. I didn't know if the beat up junker he got me would make it, but I wasn't looking forward to buying new clothes. Mine were for warmer wear and tear, not the freezing rains of Forks. I had never gone shopping before, Renee always brought me clothes from the Goodwill. I was solely dependent on her tastes. But still, he had insisted, thrown money at me and here I was, at a mall in a new town, with a wallet full of cash and no idea where to begin. I wasn't even sure who I was, and I didn't think the mall was a good place for the soul searching I needed to complete such a task as buying an entire wardrobe in a weekend.

I decided wandering around and window shopping would work. If I saw something I liked, I'd go in the store and wander around until I found it, or something else I liked. It seemed like a flawless plan. Walk in, find clothes, try on, buy. I went in three stores and came out empty handed. Weren't teenage girls supposed to love shopping? I found it exhausting and had no idea why I was going through the motions. I almost wanted to imagine trying to do this with my mom, but I could only hear babbling about corporate hell. So I stood outside of another store, just standing there gaping at the display. Wondering if I could ever wear those clothes and look like I belonged, when a shorter girl with black spiked hair bumped into me almost sending me to the ground.

"Whoops! I'm so sorry!" She said, flipping around at the last second and catching me before I fell. I was about to say it was no big deal, when her companion chided her.

"Geeze Alice, if you weren't in such a hurry to insult my fashion sense, you wouldn't of almost knocked her on her ass." I gazed over to see who was talking, and saw a stern face, with laughter dancing behind his green eyes, with messy auburn hair hanging in his eyes. He ran a hand through his hair while I practically openly gaped at him.

"Shut up, Edward!" Alice huffed, and turned back to me. Her eyes widened a little and she asked, "Where'd you get that skirt, a thrift store?" I just shifted my gaping from Edward to her. 'Why yes, I did, thank you for noticing.' I rolled my eyes internally.

"Oh no, run now. Before she ropes you into one of her make-overs." The green eyed boy said, this time chuckling at her expense. I looked him over quickly. He had a sort of James Dean sexiness about him. Cuffed blue jeans with a white V-neck and leather jacket.

"Ooooh!" She stamped her foot and turned an accusing finger on him. "Wait until I tell Mom about some of your purchases when we get home!" She huffed, and immediately dismissed him with a wave of the hand and turned back to me.

"Hi! My name is Alice and I'm sorry my brother is being a rude ass but I was wondering if you wanted to go shopping with me and maybe let me cut your hair and do your make up and…" I cut her off with a giggle and a wave of the hand.

"I'm Bella, and I'd love it if you gave me a make-over." I chanced a sly smile at Mr. Green Eyes. Her cerulean eyes immediately lit up and she grabbed my hand pulling me along with her.

"We're going to be best friends Bella! I can just tell, and shut up Edward, I don't want to hear anything you have to say!" He just walked behind us, shaking his head at me. I silently wondered what I was getting into, but the idea of a make over solved so many of my problems. I wouldn't have to make that many decisions I hoped.

"You have no idea wha-" He started, but Alice cut him off again.

"Shut uuuuup!" She hissed over her shoulder, as we reached a hair salon. "So where are you from Bella? You don't look like you're from around here, and no offense but your clothes kind of are weather inappropriate, not to mention out-dated, and I think you should just trust me and put your fashion fate fully into my hands." She said with total confidence, as if there was no way I would deny her this request. Not only did she know what she was doing, and incredibly blunt, but I had a feeling she would never steer me wrong.

"I'm actually from Forks, a few miles from here. I just moved back in with my dad after practically being dragged across the mid-west with my mother for six years, and I haven't been in school since aside from home schooling and my dad told me to go shopping and I have no idea what I'm doing and I want to be ME, but I'm not exactly sure what me is exactly so I'll leave myself in your hands but…" She cut me off.

"Isabella Swan?" She asked, with her eyes lighting up in excitement. I blanched, was she stalking me? "You're Chief Swan's daughter right? Oh my god! This is so cool!" I must have been looking at her questionably, because she continued. "He's been talking about you coming to live with him all week! He's so excited." She nodded knowingly. "I don't think some of my ideas will work well with the police chiefs daughter…" She hummed to herself for a few seconds. Seemingly deep in thought, I turned to Edward, who I presumed to be her brother.

"Is she always so excitable?" He nodded with a laugh.

"You just got sucked into a weekend of torture. I'd stay and enjoy it, but with you occupying my sister's time, I'm going to go back and buy some items she refused to let me get earlier." He waved, and started walking off, calling over my shoulder. "I'm sure we'll see a lot more of each other, if you're really going to be her new best friend" And with that, he was out of the salon. I could have sworn I felt my heart flutter at the thought of seeing him again. He was absolutely gorgeous. I'd be lying if I said my eyes didn't linger on his ass as he departed.

I must have been distracted, because Alice had started talking to a stylist about looks and hair color that would fit my "personality" and "season". I was about to ask what the hell my season was, when they both ushered me to a chair and asked what kind of hair styles I liked. Somehow knowing my opinion wouldn't matter much to them, I simply stated that I wanted my hair to remain below my shoulders, eyeing Alice's hair with caution. She giggled, and agreed that short hair wouldn't sit well with my features. They then brushed my hair out, and played with it, talking about things that completely went over my head.

An hour later we were leaving the salon with my new hair cut. My hair formerly reaching below my waist, since my mother had detested cutting hair. Was now just below my shoulders, and layered in such a way that it was almost thinner on bottom than on top. They had gotten around the 'below my shoulders' bit, by cutting my hair hap-hazzardly from top to bottom. Some of the top could be considered as short as Alice's hair. It was still my natural color, except for the underneath. Which was dyed black. Alice promised to show me thousands of neat things she could do to my hair, and promised it was trendy, and that if I ended up not liking it, she could easily fix it with some extensions, or change the color to anything else I liked. She explained that she didn't want me to go too wild with colors just yet because she didn't want to piss off my father so early in my friend ship. She was originally thinking white with a green underlay. I told her I liked that idea, and that we should definitely do that later. Taking me literally she pulled me along until we got to another store, where she grabbed hair bleach and a few bottles of green dye. While she was examining the green colors I wandered the store, looking at the clothes and jewelry. I found a gorgeous pair of lime green converse, which I immediately asked the sales person to find in my size. Holding the shoe box under my arm I continued looking around the store, with an almost smug satisfaction.

"Bella! What do you got there?" She asked almost suspiciously sneaking up behind me. I laughed, and opened the box. It wouldn't matter if she disproved, I loved them.

"Green's my favorite color, and chucks are my favorite shoes." I explained proudly. It was going to be the first thing I bought. Alice just held up a bottle of hair dye to the shoes, and giggled.

"They're a perfect match!" My eyes widened a bit. I couldn't imagine Charlie letting m.. My father, letting me have bright green hair.

"I was thinking more of an emerald green…" 'Like your brothers eyes.' I paused and shook my head at my thoughts. Where the hell did that come from?

"Trust me, it'll look awesome. I love this store they always have the cutest pants and skirts!" She said, walking a display with nothing but skinny legged pants. I swear she was thinking of a thousand different things at once, and her brain filter was non-existent. "I think you should definitely get some black pants like these," She paused, holding up a black pair with black stitching. "So they wouldn't be so off putting with your shoes. And definitely these!" She put the black ones over her arm, and pulled out a pair of dark purple pants with black zebra stripes on them. Dark purple was a whole hell of a lot nicer than the lavender bed set waiting for me at home. "What size are you?" She asked, trying to eye my waist with my oversized wool grandma sweater hanging on my body loosely. That probably… in all honestly belonged to my grandmother. I shrugged my shoulders.

"I haven't bought my own clothes… ever. Not even… other things. Girly things." I blushed and looked away, fingering a few more pants on the rack before coming across bright pink cheetah print Capri's. "I want these too." I said, pulling them off the rack. Alice just giggled.

"Oh Bella, this is going to be so much fun!"

6 hours later, sometime between 7pm and 8pm I pulled up to Charlie's house and slowly got out of the truck. He came outside to meet me, and almost smiled when he saw me turn around with my arms full of shopping bags. We weren't big on affection yet, it was still kind of awkward after being estranged for so long, but I beamed him a 100 watt smile, and attempted to do a little twirl for him, almost dropping half of my bags in the process. I was wearing the black pants, neon green chucks, and a obscure band T-shirt that Alice picked out, insisting I would love their music. Social Distortion didn't seem very lovely, I had said to her endless snicker. We had plans to meet up tomorrow afternoon so we could discuss my first day of school's outfit. Apparently it was very important to make a good first impression on Forks High.

"I was going to ask where you've been, but Esme Cullen called a few minutes ago inviting you over to dinner on Sunday. Says you and Alice met at the mall and she gave you a make over." I nodded.

"We hit it off really well, I think Dad." I snickered to myself. Literally.

"Alice Cullen is a good kid. Comes from a really well respected family." He ruffled my hair a bit before grabbing the rest of my bags out of the truck. "Only here for a day and a half and you're already making friends." It was meant as a jest, but I could hear the pride in his voice as we headed up to the house to drop my clothes off in my room. I hoped he wouldn't want to see what I bought, the idea of my dad seeing some of the bra and panty sets Alice insisted I buy, would be horrific. I had never wore a bra before, and having her explain it to me through a stall in Victoria's Secret was embarrassing.

"I gotta say, kiddo. I kinda like that hair on you." He said, reaching over and ruffling it again. I beamed at him.

"Really? 'Cos me and Alice were thinking maybe if you liked it I could do different colors with it…" I trailed off, leaving it an open ended question. He seemed to have noticed.

"How about we keep it this way for a bit, and then we can talk about you dying your hair colors of the rainbow…" He looked a little pensive at first, then chuckled. "I want to let you find yourself, Isabella. I know you kind of just went with whatever your mom suggested for a long time. If you wanna dye your hair pink then I guess I'm gonna let you." He reached out and ruffled my hair again. I could tell it was going to be an annoying endearing habit of his, but I didn't mind. "Just don't come home with any tattoos, or … situations…" He didn't really finish that sentence, or conversation. "I'm going to sleep Bells, I'll probably be gone when you wake up. I wrote the Cullen's number on the pad by the phone, so you can call Alice and get directions tomorrow." I nodded, smiling at him. He really was a good father, dispite what Renee had said. Rolling my eyes at the thought of her as he went into his room I went downstairs to grab a trash bag. I was throwing away all clothing Renee had bought me. I liked wearing jeans, and I liked my new hair. I didn't even let myself dread the make up discussion Alice promised to have with me tomorrow. I felt… indescribable. Like almost myself. Whoever she may be.

I mused over what I had learned that day. I was a size three in some pants, a size two in others, and usually a small or a medium shirt. My bra size was awkward enough and I just blushed at thinking about that, and I was a six in underwear… Which confused me. How could my pants be smaller than what goes under my pants? I was going to ask Alice about that tomorrow, I decided, and fell on top of my bed exhausted. I'd need my sleep if that little pixie demon was going to give me make up tutorials tomorrow. I kicked off my shoes and my pants and crawled into bed wearing just my t-shirt. I was asleep before my eyes fully closed.


End file.
